The other day Blogfather linked this analysis, which was one of the more informative pieces I’ve read on this. It makes me think a little better of Spain and Portugal, which the author thinks really have undertaken austerity measures and are unfairly treated the same as Greece. I don’t really know if the analysis is correct or not:

I don’t think it’s unfair. They’re southern countries. We in the north, we’re more, as it’s said in German “Schaffe, schaffe, Häusle baue” (lit. “work, work, build home”), while they have their siestas and similar. We have a German “Wirtschaftswunder” after the war, Austria also boomed pretty well back then, but there was never anything even remotely similar in Italy, or any other PIIG. It’s a mentality anda culture issue, again proving that there is no “Europe”/”European” thing. There are different people, different cultures and they don’t mix. Why do we have to pay for their sloppiness? Kick them all out of the Eurozone. Heck, drop the Euro, drop the EU. It’s clearly not working.

We’re talking countries here, that have been looked down upon and laughed at long before we even had an EU. Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, nice vacation places (if you like roasting in the sun) but apart from that the general sentiment among Austrians, Germans, British, Dutch and others was always “lol” when looking at their economic “power” and so on.

And their austerity measures will hold for how long? Until the moment Greece gets absolved 50% of their debt. There is already talk about doing that. The moment they see there won’t be consequences they will go back to how things were. Why? Because it’s easier.